#i ended up having to go through both my camera roll and my monthly spotify playlists to find when they both happened

[mildmayfoxe]

a big inspiration for my seabird print & a good song for walking around feeling somewhat melancholic

[fastcheapgreat]

....and then I realized L7 changed my life

originally written on July 17, 2015.  Reposted for @ponytiger

July 17, 2015 at 3:38pm

People always talk about bands having changed their lives.  Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until I started thinking about the times I’d seen L7 previously that I realized that they actually set my life on a certain course. I saw L7 for the first time at Fairfax High School.  7 Year Bitch and Love Battery opened.  Bikini Kill and other Riot Grrl bands were quickly gaining notoriety and being heard. I remember seeing several of female friends who had scrawled “bitch” and “slut”across their bodies at the show and just being amazed.  The idea of owning those words was a relatively new thing. A few of my zine making friends had made labels reading “LA RIOT GRRL” or something like that that they had colored in with highlighter and stuck onto their cleavage in hopes that L7 and 7 Year Bitch could see it from the stage.

At that time, I had written some poetry* for my friend’s poetry zine and really didn’t know much about zines or riot grrls or anything else.  I had heard and read of these things but this was all pre-internet.  I had pen pals and female friends and we’d make mix tapes for each other. I knew I was a "feminist" (this has become a bit of a dirty word for dudes to call themselves lately). I knew I liked punk rock. I knew I liked L7.

That night I met a gorgeous girl in doc martens and we talked about smashing the patriarchy over a Crystal Pepsi from the Fairfax High vending machine.** She knew about a small show nine inch nails was playing a couple weeks and we talked about seeing the Rock For Choice concert.  

It was a magical night that left an impression on me forever.  That girl ended up coming to pick me upfor that nine inch nails show a few weeks later. My mom came home and kicked her out of the house before we could go.  My Dad still makes fun of her for it.  I don’t even remember the girl’s name.

The next time L7 came to town, I was hoping to relive the experience.  I had absolutely no money for a ticket.  It was then that I came up with a scheme.   I called Slash records and told them I had a zine.  I didn’t have one at the time.

“What’s the name of the zine?” “ummmm the Unknown Zine” “Ok there will be two tickets at will call with a photo pass”

I called my friend and brought a camera (none of the pics came out) and we went to the show. Wood Pussy opened and had a four song set that devolved into donut tossing, brain shaped jello mold eating, and an actual orgy taking place on the stage.  If you wonder why I’m a little warped maybe it’s because I saw a bunch of people fuck right in front of me at the Whiskey a Go Go when I was 16.

L7 played next and they were glorious.  I think I had my first stage dive at that show.  The friend I brought passed out from heat and I had to get him water.  Later,Jennifer Finch, jumped from the stage and I grabbed onto her bass strings. I had one in my hand when someone yanked it and it left a mark across my fingers for weeks.

At home, I started work on my first issue.  I didn’t get an interview with anyone or anything so I wrote a review of the show.  I wrote some poetry and cut and pasted some weird stuff I found. It wasn’t great but it was mine.

Suddenly, I was constantly on the phone trying to get free cds, shirts, concert tickets for all kinds of shows.  I actually did end up reviewing most of it and using the ads labels sent me.  After a while, I got to even interview some favorite bands and, more importantly, discover new ones.

Not to sound like Grandpa Dana, but there was no downloading or spotify back then.  You had to buy albums or have friends make you tapes.  Making my zine meant labels were constantly sending me stuff in hopes that I’d like it.  If you know me, you know I’m a huge Cramps fan and a huge Dwarves fan. I found both through making my shitty kinko’s cut and paste scotch tape zine.

Since, I covered mainly punkrock, I ended up becoming friends with some of the people I admire and friends with some of the people at the labels I talked to.

Several years later, I wasn’t as active with my zine anymore.  I was in college and didn’t have a bunch of time to spend at kinko’s getting papercuts.  I got a call from my buddy, Charlie, who worked at Epitaph Records and had just quit.

“I just started a zine called Destroy All Monthly.  Do you want to write for it?” “Sure!” Writing for a magazine as opposed to creating your own felt liberating. Destroy All was a preview magazine so they mostly just covered what was coming to the Los Angeles area.  I told the magazine that I would cover every band no one else wanted to cover.  This led to me interviewing all kinds of bands in all kinds of genres.  When I fell into the Kiss or Kill scene, it became my mission to try to get some of them coverage***  

Later, after I graduated college was over and moved back to Los Angeles, I met several of the contributors to Destroy All on a bus trip to Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas. Many of the people I met on that bus ride and in Vegas are still my friends to this day. I haven’t missed a punk rock bowling since. When I came back from that trip, I left a drunken message on Cooper Gillespie’s voicemail that ended up going on the tail end of Bang Sugar Bang’s record. That song was played at the end of NFL football coverage on Sunday nights for a while

When I was looking for a place to stay,  Charlie asked if I wanted to live in his shack on Laveta Terrace in Echo Park for 450 a month (!!!).  It was cheap because he was starting a new zine, Th ePink and the Almighty, in the living room and so the common area would be compromised. That house ended up becoming my party house.  I’ll still randomly meet people who will tell me they partied there. At one of my 4th of July parties, I met my best friend, Christie Hazlet, who has picked me up when I fell down more times than I can count. If you know me, there is a good chance you know her as well.

Through writing for Destroy All, The Pink, and later, Big Wheel, I ended up writing a thing or two for Razorcake and later becoming a regular volunteer, contributor and “party ambassador” for some of their events.

Looking back now and thinking that it all comes from me being a dumb kid who wanted to get into a see a show is blowing my mind. The things rock n roll can do.

* mid teen boy poetry so it was more like “hate verse” ** there it is.  the most 90s sentence ever written. couldn’t make it up *** I maybe got one or two of them into the pages.  Kiss or Kill is a whole other thing that changed my life.